Microsoft Names Satya Nadella Its New Chief Executive Officer

Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday announced that its board of directors has appointed Satya Nadella as chief executive officer and member of the BoD effective immediately. Mr. Nadella joined Microsoft in 1992 and served in servers and cloud divisions. Most recently he was involved into the Cloud OS project, which is supposed to be the future of software at large.

“During this time of transformation, there is no better person to lead Microsoft than Satya Nadella. Satya is a proven leader with hard-core engineering skills, business vision and the ability to bring people together. His vision for how technology will be used and experienced around the world is exactly what Microsoft needs as the company enters its next chapter of expanded product innovation and growth,” said Bill Gates, a co-founder of Microsoft.

Since joining the company in 1992, Mr. Nadella has spearheaded major strategy and technical shifts across the company’s portfolio of products and services, most notably the company’s move to the cloud and the development of one of the largest cloud infrastructures in the world supporting Bing, Xbox, Office and other services. During his tenure overseeing Microsoft’s server and tools business, the division outperformed the market and took share from competitors.

As the executive vice president of Microsoft’s cloud and enterprise group, Mr. Nadella was responsible for building and running the company’s computing platforms, developer tools and cloud services. Mr. Nadella and his team deliver the “Cloud OS”, Microsoft’s next generation backend platform, which is designed for modern application needs across all types of customers and types of use. In general, Mr. Nadella was shaping the future of the software in general.

It is noteworthy that Microsoft chose an engineer on the CEO position, not an executive with business (like Steve Ballmer) or marketing background. It is highly likely that Mr. Nadella will adopt a hands-on approach for many projects at Microsoft, which should result in better and faster execution.

“Microsoft is one of those rare companies to have truly revolutionized the world through technology, and I couldn’t be more honored to have been chosen to lead the company. The opportunity ahead for Microsoft is vast, but to seize it, we must focus clearly, move faster and continue to transform. A big part of my job is to accelerate our ability to bring innovative products to our customers more quickly,” said Satya Nadella.

A lot of challenges are expecting Mr. Nadella on his way to transform Microsoft and enable faster innovation. The main competences of the new CEO are servers, cloud and software in general. Meanwhile, Microsoft recently announced a new strategy under which Microsoft will also offer a lot of its own-brand hardware and services.

“Having worked with him for more than 20 years, I know that Satya is the right leader at the right time for Microsoft. I’ve had the distinct privilege of working with the most talented employees and senior leadership team in the industry, and I know their passion and hunger for greatness will only grow stronger under Satya’s leadership,” said Steve Ballmer, who announced on Aug. 23, 2013 that he would retire once a successor was named.